| Adapted for the Internet from: Why God Doesn't Exist |
1.0 The 'official' time
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is the U.S. Government’s official timekeeper. It
is staffed by an army of well-paid mathematicians who mostly do measurement and standards research at
your expense. If the folks at the NIST don’t know what time is, then nobody does.
According to the NIST, the definition of time is:
- " The designation of an instant on a selected time scale" [1]
So then, what is a time scale?
- " An agreed upon system for keeping time" [2]
Let's see if I got this straight. Time is an instant of a time scale which is a system for keeping time. Great!
What have we learned?
Clearly, the circular definitions of the experts are not very helpful and need not be addressed further,
except to say that perhaps the people at the NIST should spend less time on measurements and more on
brainstorming definitions. The mathematicians at the NIST should start by taking an introductory course
in logic and by mastering the fundamentals of the scientific method.
2.0 An instant has nothing to do with time
Not all appears to be lost, however, because the NIST also identifies time with the word instant. This
raises the question of whether time is a synonym of instant.
Most dictionaries define the word instant as a brief period of time and equate it with the word moment.
Again we end up with a set of circular definitions: time is an instant, where an instant is a moment, which
in turn is an infinitesimal interval of time. Is this what the mathematicians are referring to when they say
that the definitions of Mathematics are rigorous?
So let’s forget about all of these amateurs and put instant and moment in their proper contexts.
Specifically, let's differentiate these two words from interval. Time is by any definition a dynamic concept
and involves memory. An instant, on the other hand, is conceptually static and observer-less (Fig. 1). If
time is a movie, an instant is a photograph: timeless...
" An instant—like a space point—is dimensionless; in other words, it is not temporally
extended. A period, on the other hand, is temporally extended." [3]
An instant comprises but one frame in the universal movie and is conceptually a cross-section of 'time'.
This image consists solely of static objects. An instant is synonymous with existence: all objects at a
fixed location with respect to each other. Said otherwise, location is conceptually a cross-section of time
whereas an event requires an interval of time (Fig. 2).
Hence, time is irreconcilable with the notion of instant. An instant is not a 'when.' An instant is a 'where.'
The mathematicians may want to make their interval as infinitesimal as they can imagine, but it will never
amount to an instant. The term instant of time is an oxymoron. It has an irrational meaning similar to ‘static
motion’ or ‘dynamic location.’
| Instant versus interval |
- ________________________________________________________________________________________
- Last modified 01/21/08
- Copyright © by Nila Gaede 2008
Fig. 1 Instant versus interval |
| Fig. 2 An instant is not a when. An instant is a where. |
| Bill died so fast that he died in an instant. |
| Relativists confuse the word instant with the term ‘infinitesimal interval.’ An instant is a photograph. An interval is a movie. Irrespective of how infinitesimal relativists wish to make their interval, this movie will never amount to a photograph. An instant is conceptually static whereas an interval is conceptually dynamic. An instant is to 'exist' what an interval is to alive or dead. Alive and dead both invoke a before and an after. These notions have a bearing on Schrödinger's Cat analogy. |
- Module main page: Newton purportedly discovered the three laws of motion, but he never defined motion!
Pages in this module:
1. The definition of the word motion
2. Position is not the same as location
3. This page: An instant is not the same as an interval
| An interval will always occupy two or more frames in the cosmic movie (as shown by the different locations of the cylinder). From a conceptual point of view, an instant is a snapshot, a static image. An instant has nothing to do with time and all to do with location. |